Bush Names Day of Mourning for Katrina Victims

President George Bush yesterday announced a national day of mourning for the victims of Hurricane Katrina, as authorities in New Orleans began the grim task of searching for corpses in the ravaged city with 25,000 body bags at the ready.

The president said next Friday would be a day of prayer and remembrance.

There is still no official estimate of how many people died, and so far the focus has been on rescuing the living rather than counting or collecting the putrefying bodies lying in the city's floodwaters.

But the official house-to-house search for bodies began at mid morning, with a temporary mortuary set up about 50 miles away in St Gabriel prepared to receive 500 to 1,000 bodies a day, with refrigeration trucks on site to hold the corpses. Asked if authorities expected to fill every body bag, a spokesman for the state department of health and hospitals said: "We don't know what to expect ... It means we are prepared."

In Mississippi the official death toll stands at 201, but officials estimate that at least 1,000 people died there too.

In New Orleans emergency workers continued to go from house to waterlogged house urging the estimated 10,000 residents who remain to leave. Until now the police and national guard and coastguard units orchestrating the emptying of the city have done little more than implore reluctant residents to get out.

"Right now, human life is paramount so I'm concentrating all my power on getting out people who want to leave," police chief Eddie Compass told NBC. But officials warned that the hazards posed by fires, waterborne diseases and natural-gas leaks mean the city will eventually have to use force on those who resist.

"We need everyone out so we can continue with the work of restoring this city," said coast guard vice admiral Thad Allen.

The floodwaters are thick with sewage-related bacteria in amounts at least 10 times higher than acceptable safety limits, including E. coli, and a type of cholera-like bacteria. "If you haven't left the city yet, you must do so," said Julie Gerberding, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She urged anyone coming into contact with the water to scrub up with soap.

As the relief operation for the hundreds made homeless by the disaster continued the US yesterday asked Nato to take on a bigger role transporting European aid to areas hit by Hurricane Katrina.

European nations have made substantial offers of food, medicine, bedding and other help to the stricken region, and some have expressed surprise that the US has not reacted quicker to take up their aid offers. Kurt Volker, principal deputy assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, said time was needed to evaluate some of the longer-term help.

"We are doing our best to deal with the immediate humanitarian needs of the people," said Mr Volker. "There are a number of offers which are more advanced in a sense that they are in a later phase in the effort such as pumping equipment and generators, we'll be responding to those offers in due course."

The Bush administration despatched vice president Dick Cheney to the area as recriminations over who was to blame for the slow response to the disaster continued.

Standing outside a damaged house in the town of Gulfport, Mississippi, Mr Cheney said he had "enormous confidence" in the beleaguered FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) director, Michael Brown, an administration appointee who has born the brunt of criticism for the slow and ineffective response.

"The president asked me to come down to take a look at things, and to begin to focus on the longer term, in terms of making certain obviously that we're getting the search and rescue missions done and all those other immediate things," Mr Cheney said.

"The progress we're making is significant."

New Orleans now feels like a city under occupation, with heavily armed national guardsmen on just about every street corner in the historic French Quarter of the city.